March 24, 2020

I’ve felt gut punched ever since the president’s press conference last night. The small solace I felt late last week, when it finally felt like public policy was following medical and epidemiological expertise, was gone. While Mr. Trump didn’t make any firm directives last night, he tossed some doubt into the air, like so many nerf balls into a circle of knife jugglers. Anyone who wanted to second-guess medical and government authorities now had license. If he’s talking about coronavirus in the past tense, we can just start acting like it’s over, right? 

As Trump is wont to do, he spun a tale of the reality that he prefers — that we can finally put this virus kerfuffle behind us and get back to business! — in hopes that his story would be sufficiently amplified that a critical mass of people would accept it as true. I have to grant Trump that his reality-constructing tendency is based in a kernel of truth: much of what manifests in the world does follow human expectation. When people think the economy will crank along and they invest, loan, and spend accordingly, it generally* does. But bafflingly yet so predictably, Trump has yet to fathom that this virus resists persuasion. Its logic is simple and lies in the realities of biology, ecology, and math. Would that any human were as immune to it as Mr. Trump is to facts.

These thoughts were the ones unsettling me this morning as I biked through almost-empty streets; watered a dozen greenhouses after sanitizing every spigot, hose handle, and sliding door; and came home to hot-water-wash my laundry and bleach my keys, bike goggles, and ID card. This is not the world to which we’re accustomed, and that’s not just because we’ve shut down swaths of the economy. Humanity’s collective immune system is working perfectly but is wholly naive to this new challenge. It will learn to resist this new virus, person by surviving person, but our collective organism will suffer — is clearly already suffering — in the process. We, collectively, have a fever right now, and it unfortunately hasn’t spiked yet. 

So where do I go with this? The anger, fear, helplessness, anger again. I can’t shout loud enough; even Dr. Fauci can’t intercept Trump’s improvisation before it confuses and hamstrings the public he pretends to serve. In ordinary circumstances, I could blow off steam to an officemate, but in this socially distanced world, I’d have to intentionally reach out. And while I know my friends and relations would welcome my call, I don’t want to be a nerf ball in someone else’s knife-juggle if I can help it.

Not surprisingly, where I go is the keyboard. Letting words order themselves around the shape of an emotion is a comfort to me. It doesn’t expel the feeling, but it gives it space to settle. To show its texture and contour, to be seen as the intelligent messenger that it is. 

Anger is based in deep caring, and in recognizing the gap between current reality and a possible, better reality. Anger is an embodied NO, and when embodied skillfully, it holds vital and transformative energy. 

I still don’t know where that energy should go. The most honest answer is that besides caring for my own health, being there — albeit electronically — for those in my orbit, keeping my dissertation process moving, and trying to see clearly through the daily barrage of dissonant information, I don’t know what more to do.  But I want to do more to help the people in my community who are hurting, while also keeping myself safe. 

And maybe where I have to rest is in that tension. I don’t think I can make this feel ok, but can let the tension open me to what’s happening around me, and to the intelligent ways I could respond. Blind anger is not a motivator I trust, but anger given sight — anger given a chance to unwind into the deep caring from which it arises — is energy that our collective organism needs, that I need, and that I’ll allow to move me.

*not always; note dot-com bubble, housing bubble, etc

The Christmas we burned everything, but ate it anyway

Ok, not everything
just the butterscotch pecan rolls
that I make once a year
but dream of more often
that when perfect
and they have been perfect
drip and glisten and ever so slightly saturate
with butter-beautiful sugar-sticky goo

But this year I learned
that if you brown the butter before baking
you black the butter while baking
and you end up with pinwheel-embossed pucks
bonded in a rectangular mass of caramel-y tenacity
although golden brown
and arguably edible
on the lower side

They were not what I wanted to give
but they were what I had
and my family ate them anyway
avoiding the parts
threatening to dental work

My brother reassured me
that he loved me anyway
which I knew
and appreciated
but still wanted to eat
and give
perfect butterscotch pecan rolls

We also burned the potatoes
that were to have accompanied
the disaster rolls
and egg bake
and salad for adults
(but jello Christmas trees for kids)

We didn’t know about the potato burning
it actually hadn’t happened yet
til turning on the oven to cook dinner
after my brother left
with kids full of jello and presents and playtime

We didn’t find the potatoes til mom and me
were packing my grandma’s old cooler
with tangerines for me to take home

Grandma would be glad no one was leaving
without a tasteable memento
of having been gathered

This Christmas
was quiet and warm and gentle and simply a place to land
however briefly
to remember where we are held
unquestionably held
burned butterscotch pecan rolls be damned

Packing tangerines, we smelled something
wafting between appealing and dangerous
and remembered the potatoes

They emerged in a sunburst of tuber dice
charred to inedibility on the borders
slow-roasted to sweet, salt-kissed tenderness
in the middle

They were beautiful
and delicious
as we stood at the stove
eating Christmas dinner
exactly as it appeared to us

Requiem for a Lab Protocol

As many of you know, my doctoral thesis comprises two experiments and a breeding project revolving around geosmin, the molecule that confers earthy aroma to table beets. I, like the two Goldman Lab beet researchers before me, have measured geosmin in table beets with the GC-MS (gas chromatograph-mass spectrometer), an instrument that measures the abundance of molecules by separating them by size and structure. 

A rainbow of beet slurry. Each vial represents a single root descended from a Touchstone Gold (medium-low geosmin) x Chioggia (medium-high geosmin) cross. For the plant breeders in the crowd, these are F2:3 individuals derived from a population of F2 individuals segregating for geosmin.

Over the past four years, I’ve spent about 350 hours – about 21,000 minutes, if your calculator isn’t handy – converting 2,276 beet slurry samples into data points representing geosmin concentration. 

This particular GC-MS protocol requires two 1.5-hour work periods, morning and night, at either end of its 8-hour process. It becomes either a constant companion or a taskmaster, depending on my perspective. The work is divided into two-week “campaigns,” a word chosen by my predecessors that captures the dogged and results-driven nature of the work but obscures its requirement for solitude and decided lack of festivity. The work is quiet and the frozen test tubes cold on the fingertips; it requires precision, rewards an abiding spirit that tolerates repetition and fatigue. It has honed my capacity to be exactly where I am, to allow minutiae to whisper me their wisdom.

Beets on Ice. 335 samples of beet slurry (at 2 vials each) waiting to help me discover genetic regions associated with geosmin concentration in table beet.

I learned several years ago that the GC-MS is unconcerned with my mood or what I might be missing in the world outside of my lab. It wants exactly 1.95 microliters of menthone per beet slurry vial, please and thank you; it wants its autosampler magnet wiped ever-so-gently each day; it wants its septum changed every third run, after allowing 35 minutes for its injection port to reach 40 degrees C. And if I don’t abide, it doesn’t rage; it just responds with numbers that don’t make sense and waits patiently, maintaining resting temperature, while I cry or swear in anticipation of weekend sleep lost or another late, solitary fried-egg dinner. It’s there, when I’m ready, to supply correct data, accumulating in graceful right-skewed distributions, of the geosmin in exactly twelve silver-capped vials of beet slurry at a time. It may be oblivious to the resplendence of its magenta or fire-gold or purple-grey subjects, but it is meticulously attentive to its task.

Our GC-MS protocol calculates geosmin concentration compared to the concentration of another molecule, menthone. That means I need to inject exactly the same amount of menthone into each sample vial. This season, for some inscrutable reason, it was quite challenging to mix a functional menthone standard. This red & white lineup was an effort to find a good one, and more importantly, to figure out the method by which I could repeatably mix one.

After four years and 233 repetitions, this GC-MS protocol has become both a tool and a teacher. It has taught me not to force.  It has taught me to pay patient attention, to do things right instead of twice. It has taught me that what I do when I’m alone counts. It has taught me to show up, except when I can’t. That there is such a thing as too much. 

I can’t say that I will miss it. I’ve learned how to fill the margins of my days with beautiful things to do and people to be with, so I don’t need my time occupied as I once did. But like any challenging teacher, this protocol presented a barrier to my habits and assumptions that, over time, became a mirror. It’s helped me see, and it’s helped me see myself. And for that I owe it a proper goodbye.

Things noticed in times of truth and sadness

how the domed greenhouses
             I’ve seen a thousand times
             have pointed square hats
             jaunty in their ventilation
  
 how I can see the roof of the parking ramp
             from here
             the trucks on top
             sparse, cold, unprotected by snow
             in solidarity
  
 how houseplants stretch towards cloudy sky
             there is nourishment
             if not abundance
             what we need
             if not all we want
  
 Truth is the cleanest museum case for grief
             hard angles
             spotless glass
             pain honored
             for its singular
             searing
             splendor 

The reliquary

What are the relics in your life?
  he asked in a much loved sermon
  that no one I’ve asked 
  seems to remember
  
 The old ladies chortled
   while shaking his hand
   I think *I* am the relic
   deepest truth, deepest pain
   smoothed with commiseration
  
 His point was that relics become
   gods themselves
 That times past
  idealized in selective memory
  cannot be the objects of our yearning
 That people passed
  must be grieved
  not deified
  
 That in grief we keep
  their memory
  their once-presence
  from becoming a trap
  of now-imagined expectations
  without the possibility of tangible check
  
 Will you love me even if I don’t succeed?
 If you don’t understand me, am I Understood?
  
 In grief we let our precious ones be human
  temporary
  serendipitous
  ephemeral assemblies of smallest bits
  divine and destructible

  We return ourselves
  terrifyingly
  and with merciful, ocean-cold relief
  to our own ephemerality
   to the depth from which the reliquary arises
  and will necessarily fall again  

World emoji day: Not a haiku

Finally a holiday
Without enforced emotion
Feel something anything
Just make it cute

Even the mad faces
Anguished faces
Laugh-with-tear exasperated faces
Are cute in their suffering

Language could unify us
We could realize that because
We all understand anger sadness love
Peace
We are written by the same writer

But now since we write in pictures again
New hieroglyphs
Could our common library
Of yellow faces
Make us remember our unity in facedness

Well maybe
But facepalm wince eyeroll
That would require a different holiday
That enforces emotion

Eye witness

That awning there
is too small to stand under
a slowly rusting unibrow
for four lined-up-front-tooth-style windows
so maybe the awning is more a mustache
the teeth enjoy a dry upper lip

An utterly missable building
rectangular brick façade
aforementioned curious mustache
single gabled roof above
unremarkable

Midcentury mass-produced siding in paint-peeling white
windows where eyes would be
but off center and
one portrait, one landscape
no shutters
much less a unibrow

Not constructed for beauty
constructed as if safety from the outside
was beauty’s closest approximation
black shutter white siding brick wall
was enough

It defies filigree
lies supine
as entropy advances
in silent protest to sense-making
as sessile witness
to incongruent eyes

A life handwritten

This tribute was given at the funeral service held on Friday, December 29, 2017  for my Grandma, Maxine Dimick.

It’s a gift to be in your company this morning, to celebrate the life of my Grandma, Maxine Dimick. As many of you know, my Grandma loved words and stories; she loved to correspond but far preferred the pen to the keyboard. So while Grandma brought her vibrant physical presence to holidays, vacations, and – in my case – weekly childcare visits, she also accompanied us grandkids through life with an abiding handwritten presence. First in words printed with the precision of a kindergarten teacher, and later in her enthusiastic and confident cursive, Grandma relayed the stories, values, and love that helped to sustain us.

My grandma wrote in printing.

My grandma delighted in watching children learn, grow, and discover the world around them. To that end, we grandchildren each received photo books documenting our preschool life with Grandma and Grandpa. Each page held a snapshot, usually of one of us playing, “helping,” or just living, with a hand-printed sentence or two. For example, there’s a photo of my 13-month-old self sitting in a high chair next to my Grandpa, haphazardly feeding myself with a spoon. It’s captioned, “Lunchtime! My mommie sat in this high-chair when she was a little girl.

”In making these photo books, Grandma was not just helping us learn to read; she was also helping us learn our own stories. She was showing us that we were rooted in family, held as precious, and simply enjoyed.

Grandma’s printing also represented structure. While she and Grandpa made it clear that their love for us was unconditional, it was also clear that a certain standard of behavior was expected. Outdoor voices were to be kept outdoors; conversation was welcomed, but interruption was not; diverse ideas were considered, but respectful exchange was required. In their home and through their expectations, Grandma and Grandpa created a safe container for us. The boundaries they set were intentional, not arbitrary; within them, there was space to grow.

In Grandma’s printing, then, lies a simplicity:

The world is a wondrous place to discover.
Human connections are precious.
Not all behavior is acceptable, but all people are.

My grandma also wrote in cursive.

As we grandkids grew into adulthood, our correspondence from Grandma didn’t slow, but the handwriting changed. A prolific and conscientious correspondent, my Grandma wrote lengthy letters, short notes, and lovingly selected birthday cards in technically competent cursive that was at once elegant and breezy. I remember her reflecting, half-apologetically, that “I don’t suppose I have much earth-shaking news to share, but a note doesn’t have to be deep, just chatty!”

She understood, I think, that the depth lay simply in making the connection. Her notes meant that we were remembered, appreciated as unique, held as precious.

Despite Grandma’s humble appraisal of her letters, however, they were not without intellectual and spiritual depth. Among accounts of family and neighborhood goings-on, Grandma sprinkled musings about ethics and current events, Bible verses she found meaningful, and prayers for those in need – which usually included us!

Grandma’s was an examined faith; she and Grandpa read devotions daily – after breakfast and very slowly, it seemed, when I visited them as a kid – and engaged in thoughtful, critical discussion about how to best reflect God’s grace in their daily lives. While quiet reflection was less than entertaining to a child anticipating a morning of play, its value became clear as I grew. Even as Grandma hand-wrote her life, she recognized a loving God as the ultimate author.

Simple and structured like hand printing, unbroken and flowing like script, Grandma’s love held us grandkids as we grew. Her passing, then, invites all of us to consider the handwriting of our own lives, its balance of structure and fluidity. It invites us to use our words to build wonder, share joy, engage our minds and spirits, and above all, hold one another as precious.

My Grandma was a gift to all of us; may we continue to be gifts to one another.

Grandma and me in June 1981.

Grandma and me on December 1 2017, my 39th birthday.

 

Coffee

I was mocked for buying the number two coffee cone
Justifiably perhaps
Who needs so little coffee?

A six ounce cup is but a tease
Like pulling back a wind up car
Just until the wheels engage
It skitters forward but loops no loops

Indeed, for summer days in the field
Pulling weeds, pulling hoes
Driving trucks and agendas
The tall silver travel mug is needed
And the French press to fill it

But for today
A sweet sunny Saturday for not driving anything
My little number two cone is perfect

And my tiny cup
With a tiny cap of real whipped cream
Is just big enough to hold a low, lazy hum
That, in turn, holds me
On a day when small is not shrinking
But instead surrender

Back from the woods

As some of you know, I made the first part of Spring Break into a solo retreat at a semi-primitive cabin along the Appalachian Trail in Northern Virginia. It was wonderful. I hiked; I read; I wrote; I sat; I built fires. I deepened my relationship to quiet, to cold, to the contrast of heat against cold. I let my mind run and run, until the running became not something to chase but something to allow and appreciate, like the rush of the wind.

I also checked out of social media, email, and the news during my time there. Considering the frequency with which I check into these things during my normal life, I thought checking out would be harder. It was not. It was a relief, a much needed re-prioritization that allowed calm and creativity to emerge.

 

So while I’ll reengage with email and the news, I’m going to limit my social media time to a breakfast-time window and an early evening window. Not first thing in the morning or last thing at night, and not during the “normal” nine-to-five workday.

 

Because as some of you also know, this has been a challenging semester for me. I’ve had a lot of academic success in my life, but in the second semester of Organic Chemistry lecture I’ve found my match. I’ve found a kind of thinking that my mind doesn’t naturally do, and having taken the first half of said lecture two years ago, “rusty” doesn’t begin to describe the oxidation state of my chemistry knowledge at the semester’s outset.

So I started the semester lagging behind my cohort – made of pre-med students and future chemistry majors whose handwriting looks like goddamn Helvetica font, I swear – and unlike most classes to which I apply effort, I have not been able to catch up. I’ve earned two consecutive D’s (yes, with the curve) on the first two midsemester exams, which means that I need two C’s on the last midsem and the final to pass. Or I need to drop the class.

 

That decision will be made in the next few days, after consultation with the people closest to me, whose support I would need in my refocused effort. If I go for it – which of course I’m inclined to do – I will need to minimize distractions during my workdays. Which augurs for the stepping-back from social media.

 

And even if I drop organic chemistry, I will be happier with a less jumpy mind. As much as I find mild enjoyment in watching yet another aerial-view cooking video involving canned biscuit dough, butter, and cinnamon, there are more interesting things to notice in this life.

It can be hard for we humans to be where we are. It’s an admission of our smallness, that our spheres of control are limited, that we are both tethered and cradled by place and people and past choices.

 

 

 

While I love the people in my life and am engaged in interesting work, there is still a fear that niggles in the soles of my feet that I Should Be Where I’m Not. That I’m missing my calling, wasting my talents, fiddling while Rome burns, pick your turn of phrase. That being just here, just me, just a person doing a thing, isn’t good enough.

But of course, being just here and just me is the essence of good enough. It is the essence of enough. I’ve spent a lot of energy refusing enough-ness – with respect to food, money, rest, love – and I’m learning that enough-ness is just waiting to give that energy back.

 

So. I’m back from the woods. I am ready for next steps, and different steps, that start exactly where I am.